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Violence against children is a significant problem throughout the African continent as it is around the world. In 2006, the UN Secretary General submitted a report on ending violence against children that set the agenda around the world.

The persistence and magnitude of the problem 10 years later require stronger call to end the phenomenon. To this end the world leaders adopted the agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in September 2015 and set specific goals to end violence against children. In the course of the past decade, Africa has achieved a lot of progress in ensuring the protection rights of children. Many countries have undertaken legislative and policy measures and programmatic interventions. For instance, violence, torture, cruelty and mistreatment are prohibited in almost all African Constitutions and children are protected under the general provisions of the majority. The right to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment is recognised in 49 African Constitutions and is explicitly defined as a non-derogable right in six.

Despite significant progress, many children remain exposed to various forms of violence :

· About 60 per cent of children experienced physical punishment by family members.

· In many countries in Africa, one in four children, experience sexual violence.

· A significant number of children in Africa are engaged in hazardous labour in plantations, mines and as domestic workers, routinely exposed to severe forms of neglect and sexual and physical violence.

· Each year three million girls are at risk of genital cutting in Africa and millions of girls are married before the age of 18.

· More than 43 per cent of boys in residential care institutions had suffered physical violence, while 20 per cent of children reported having experienced sexual violence of one or another form.

Despite encouraging progress in addressing violence against children on multiple fronts, most of the existing efforts have been plagued by fragmentation and duplication. The existing collaboration in addressing violence against children among child protection actors is only limited to those having a focus on curative, victim-support services. Very limited efforts have been made to bring actors working around both prevention and response together. The former are often excluded from child protection debates and collaborative initiatives. For instance, actors and stakeholders working around prevention such as those working in the areas of better parenting, family- and communitybased child protection, care reform and child-sensitive social protection are almost always excluded from collaborative initiatives in addressing violence against children.

At the global level and as a follow up to the UN Secretary General Report of 2006 and the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, there are renewed calls for collective accelerated action to end violence against children; such as High Time to End Violence and End Violence against Children: The Global Partnership. Violence against children is a major hindrance to Africa social and economic transformation agenda as envisioned in the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063.

The Africa Child Policy Forum, organized a 2 day meeting to launch The African Partnership to End Violence against Children. The partnership will, among others, advance collective efforts to comprehensively address violence against children along the prevention-response continuum. It also aims to facilitate the uptake of the draft Agenda 2040 for Children in Africa and the SDGs-child protection targets in Africa through collective programming, knowledge building and sharing.

The event had an estimated 70 participants representing:

§ Representatives of the African Union Commission and the ACERWC

§ Representatives of EAC, ECOWAS, ECCAS & SADC

§ Government representatives

§ Representatives of pan-African, sub-regional and national CSO coalitions and networks

§ Representatives of children and youth

§ Representatives of UN SRSG-VAC and UN Agencies

§ Representatives of INGOs

§ Representative of The Global Partnership to End Violence against Children

§ Experts/resource persons

§ Representatives of the media

The aim of the meeting was to build a consensus on the ending violence against children. The draft strategy had recommended

Vision

The Africa Partnership vision is to end Violence Against children

Goal

The Partnership seeks to ensure ending VAC is a priority of governments and non-state actors which are acted upon in multisectoral and comprehensive manner

Objectives

·Generate greater political commitment to end violence against children in the continent, including the AU.

·To coordinate action to end violence against children at the regional level including the REC level

·To accelerate actions to end violence against children at the National level

·To monitor and evaluate the actions to end violence in Africa.

·To facilitate generation and dissemination of knowledge, evidence and data of end violence actions/interventions.

·To facilitate cross learning and sharing of experiences on combating violence against children.

·To strategically reflect Africa’s priority, position and perspective within the global movement to end violence against children.

Priorities/ Themes

·Coordination between state and non-state actors

·Financing and resourcing including the social workforce

·Prevention focused

·Knowledge management and evidence based interventions

·Visibility of Violence Against Children in all levels

Rational

·Innovation and cross learning

·Linking the global partnerships

·Harness of other partners efforts

Key Approaches

This partnership is not intended to be a new organization but a platform for partners.

The African partnership will not prescribe what/how the partners are going to work, but will allow members to be innovative.

for updates about the partnership kindly visit http://africanchildforum.org/en/index.php/en/?option=com_content&view=article&id=400&Itemid=364

Children’s act

The National Council of Children Services released the Zero draft for comments, The Children Agenda Forum in partnership with other forms Kenya Alliance Advancing Children Right and Alternative Care Cluster developed a submission and forwarded it to the department. The forum is currently roling out a lobby strategy to ensure the Bill is a law before the 2017 General Elections

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The National Child Status Conference

The department of children services is planning to hold the annaula national child status conference between 29th November and 1st December,2016. It is expected during the conference different counties are going to report about the child welfare in the counties

Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children Members

The Children Agenda Forum is a member of the global Partnership to end violence against children. The Partnership aims to support the efforts of those seeking to prevent violence, protect childhood, and help make societies safe for children.